Infinite Magic (Dragon's Gift: The Huntress Book 5) (21 page)

But nothing happened. My limbs stayed cold, and my form stayed human.

Damn it!
What good was infinite power if I couldn’t use it?

Victor crouched next to Nix, setting the cup at her side.
 

“Stop it!” I shrieked, knowing it would do no good.

The demon’s boot pressed harder on my stomach, shutting me up. I tried the last thing I could think of, reaching out for Del’s magic. If I could mirror it, I could transport us out of here.

My power reached out for hers, seeking the clean laundry smell and the gift of transporting.

I came up cold. The cauldron dampened her gift, so there was nothing there for me to mirror. I’d been able to mirror the guards’ magic in the Prison for Magical Miscreants because they’d worn the cuffs that made their power active.

I tried not to let hopelessness take over. There was a way out of this. There had to be.
 

I looked over at Nix and Victor, who knelt at her side. She was still unconscious, her brown hair spread across the cobblestone.
 

A creepy smile tugged at the corner of Victor’s mouth as he turned Nix’s head and dragged the dagger across the side of her throat.

“Stop it!” I shrieked.

Nix jerked upright, her eyes flaring wide. The cut wasn’t deadly, though it bled freely. The demon at her side gripped her shoulders, holding her still.

“What the hell!” she shouted.
 

She kicked, but Victor dodged her legs, pressing the goblet to the side of her throat and letting the blood pour into it.

The golden chalice began to smoke and glow bright.
 

“The chalice’s immortality is enhancing her blood,” Victor said.

“Stop it, you bastard!” Nix yelled.

Victor removed the goblet and stood, then walked over to the cauldron and poured the blood into it. The silver vessel glowed an eerie red, the decorative impressions highlighted ghoulishly. He shook out the last of the blood, then approached us again.

“What the hell is your problem, Victor?” I demanded. My heart pounded a fierce staccato in my chest.
 

“Oh, I’m sure you can imagine,” he said as he crouched by Del.
 

She spat at him, and he smacked her, then grabbed her hair and cut her neck with his blade. She shrieked and kicked, but her wound wasn’t deadly either. Just enough to fill the goblet with blood.

I’d been wrong about Victor. He hadn’t wanted my power. Or at least, he no longer wanted it. After he’d failed to steal it from me as a child, he’d set his sights on a bigger prize.
 

But he still needed me to get it. The Watcher of the Power had said that only the Triumvirate could move the Stone of Power. Apparently, our blood could do that just fine. Especially if it was “enhanced” by the Chalice of Youth.

I thrashed against the demon’s hold above me. Until my hands were unbound or I could at least roll over to shoot them with lightning, my power was useless. But the demon pressed his boot harder into my stomach, not letting me move an inch.

Victor knelt at my side, and bile rose in my throat. I could hear Del and Nix screaming at him, but my rage drowned out their exact words.

“You bastard,” I hissed. “You cowardly, miserable piece of shit. Using your parents’ deaths as an excuse to be a fucking asshole. You’re weak.”

That last one got to him. His impassive brown gaze flared slightly, and he smacked me across the face. Pain flared in my cheek as my head whipped sideways. Head still spinning, I felt the knife cut into my neck.

I thrashed and struggled as the demon held me still. The wound burned as my blood flowed into the cup. I could hear it sizzle when it hit the golden goblet.

Miserable as it was, the process was over too soon. He was that much closer to his goal. Victor stood and walked away from me, the goblet clutched in his hand.
 

“Is that it?” Del screamed. “That’s all you’ve got? Taking our blood and pouring it in your stupid cauldron?”

“Hardly,” Victor said.

I thrashed against my bindings and the demon who pinned me. I’d rubbed my wrists raw and the rope slid against blood, but it wasn’t enough to allow my wrists to slip free.
 

I kept my gaze on Victor and Dermot, who watched his master avidly.
Fucking moron.
Victor wasn’t going to share the power with him. He’d be lucky if Victor didn’t sacrifice him as part of this sick ritual.

Victor poured the goblet of my blood into the cauldron. The silver glowed an even brighter red as it flowed in. When the goblet was empty, Victor tossed it in too. The whole thing flared red and silver. Victor raised his hands over the top, and an inky black fluid flowed from his fingertips into the cauldron. The scent of rot and decay rolled toward me. I gagged.

His magic. He was somehow pouring his magic into the cauldron with our blood.

The potion within began to smoke and bubble, flowing up over the top. What was he going to do with it?
 

Panic and fear drowned out rational thought.

We were failing! We were fated to fix this, and we were failing! Hundreds of Shifters would die when he got all the power he sought. More, probably.
Us
.

Victor stepped back from the cauldron, which glowed a brilliant red and smoked like Vesuvius. A second later, the whole thing melted, collapsing in a pile of melted silver and vile potion.

What the hell?

It flowed in one direction, a glowing orange river that began to form the shape of a star.

The emblem in the middle of the courtyard! I noticed it the last time I was here, when I’d been knocked out of the sky by the Shifter’s nets, but hadn’t realized it was anything more than decoration.
 

But the cauldron was gone. As the potion filled in the crevices forming the shape of a star, I tried reaching for my magic to see if I could access it.

I got nothing but the usual trickle. Though the cauldron was gone, the melted metal was still imbued with the dampening charm. The silver was quickly cooling, turning from red to black. And the charm was still in effect. Now, it’d become part of the courtyard.

The potion still glowed red in the outline of the star. The earth began to tremble and Victor laughed, a victorious sound that made my skin chill. A great cracking noise rent the night as the ground split open where the potion soaked into the cobblestones. I jerked, trying to scramble back, but the demon held me fast.

The crack streaked open, ten feet long and at least three feet wide. A golden light shot up from the crevice, shooting into the night sky.

“No!” I cried. We must be right over the cavern that held the Stone of Power.

Victor approached the beam of light and held his hand into it. When his skin made contact, the light turned dark. Smoky. My heart thundered in my head. He was taking the neutral power and turning it evil! Taking it into himself.
 

A black cloud spread out from the vertical beam of light, slowly moving toward the ground to form a dome over us. It reeked of evil, making me shudder and gag.
 

Panic surged in my chest as I fought the demon who pinned me. We couldn’t just lie here helplessly!

Above me, a flash of red and blue caught my eye. My gaze darted toward it. The dragonets! The four of them zoomed downward from high in the sky, coming to our rescue.

We might make it out of this.

Suddenly, more figures appeared in the courtyard. Aidan, Claire, Conner, and Emile. Some had bandages wrapped around limbs, but they were here. All alive. Somehow, they’d escaped Victor’s ambush.
 

Then the League of FireSouls appeared. All nine of them. And finally, Aerdeca and Mordaca, dressed in their usual black and white. But it was combat gear this time.
 

Not only had my friends escaped, but they’d called for help and gotten transport charms from somewhere. Likely from the League of FireSouls, who’d had a stockpile last I’d seen them. They’d managed to break through Glencarrough’s defenses because Victor had taken the Heartstone.
 

Take that, you bastard.

Hope flared bright even as the demons who’d surrounded us surged into the circle. At least two dozen made it inside before the smoky black dome slammed down around us. My friends were all trapped inside, but the numbers weren’t terribly uneven.

Connor hurled a potion bomb at the glittering blue Heartstone that hovered in the air. It exploded against the stone in a cloud of green, knocking the thing to the ground. It clattered against the cobblestones, and the blue rays of light that had frozen the Shifters faded.
 

I could barely see through the hazy black dome that surrounded us, but I could make out movement on the top wall. Oh, thank magic, they were unfrozen.

They were still outnumbered by the demons, but at least they had a chance. At least
we
had a chance, with the shifters on our side. Battle exploded around me, fought hand to hand, weapon to weapon. No magic and no Shifting because of the cauldron.

Aidan charged the demon who pinned me, slamming into him and throwing him to the ground. I struggled to my feet just as Claire reached me. She slashed through my bindings with her sword, then raced to Del.

I spun toward Victor, ready to blast him with my lightning. I might not be at full power, but I was the only one with magic and I’d blast him until he fried. The golden light was continuing to flow into him, probably draining from the stone deep in the cavern below.

Behind Victor, Mordaca stood, her black hair whipping in the wind. She drew a black bow from her back and fired an arrow straight at him, her gaze deadly.

I wanted the kill for myself, but watching the projectile shoot toward his heart made joy leap in my own. He wasn’t even looking.

But the arrow bounced off of him. Mordaca shrieked, then fired another. It bounced off as well. Finally, Victor glanced toward her, annoyed.

Would he attack or continue to absorb the power? I didn’t want to find out. The battle raged around me as I called upon my magic, focusing on my gift of lightning. It crackled and burned beneath my skin, and I let it go, shooting it toward Victor.

Thunder cracked as the bolt bounced off of him, striking a nearby demon.

Damn it!

“How is he impervious?” Del yelled from where she fought a demon with her sword.

The Watcher’s words came back to me. “He can’t be hurt within his circle of power.
This
is his circle of power.”

Nearby, Aidan fought off two demons. Aerdeca battled another, wielding a slender black sword like a pro. It was a war zone in here, people falling left and right. Blood everywhere.
 

“We have to get him out of here, then. Before he finishes his ritual,” Nix yelled.

“On it!” Aidan yelled back. He charged Victor, slamming into him with all his might, clearly attempting to carry him outside of the smoky barrier.

Normally, he’d have no problem. But Victor didn’t budge, fixed in place by the same magic that protected him from Mordaca’s arrows and my lightning. Instead, he lashed out with an arm, throwing Aidan off him. Aidan flew twenty feet through the air, propelled by Victor’s unnatural strength, and crashed into the ground. Connor raced to him, fighting off a demon as Aidan rose.

Dread filled my chest, a black tar that made it hard to breath. I turned to Nix and Del, whose faces looked as panicked as I felt. The battle raged around us.

“What do we do?” I asked.

“I don’t know!” Nix cried.

A flash of blonde hair caught my eye as a person shouted. Corin, the FireSoul leader.

“Corin!” I yelled. “Are there any more transport charms.”

“No!” She yelled as she stabbed a demon through the stomach. “We used the last one to get here.”

My head began to buzz as the terrible dread grew. No charms and my magic didn’t hurt him. He was impervious to all attack.

“What do we do?” Nix cried.

“I know.” Del’s voice was deadly calm. “Cass will take my gift. She’s the only one with the power to actually use it inside this hell bubble.”

My heart dropped to my feet. “What do you mean, take your gift?”

Del’s eyes were serious. “You know what I mean. You take my gift, like a FireSoul would. Then you can transport him out of here and kill him.”

Bile rose in my throat as Nix gasped. “No! No, Del! She can just Mirror it.”

My whole body turned to ice.

Del’s voice was steady as she said, “No, she can’t. She already tried when we were tied up. Right, Cass?”

“I tried.” My voice was lead. Around us, the battle raged. Bodies were on the ground. Some of them had to be my friends. We were running out of time. “It didn’t work.”

Everything inside me screamed as Del said, “You have to do it, Cass. You heard the prophecy. One of us will fall, only to rise again. That’s me.”

Tears burned my eyes, and a rock lodged in my throat. “No,” I croaked.

“I’m the one!” Del cried. “I am Death. What can dying do to me? I am the only one with a gift that can help you kill Victor. You must take it and defeat him.”

“No!” I screamed. I couldn’t think clearly. I didn’t care if she was right. I didn’t care about prophecy. All I could think about was losing Del. My world was pain and terror. “No!”

Del stepped forward. “I love you, Cass.”

“No, Del—”

She thrust her sword through her chest. The silver blade sank deep, somewhere left of her heart.

Nix screamed. I might have screamed. I didn’t know. There was a roaring in my head as I stared at Del.

She fell to her knees, her eyes wide. Blood marred her lips as she croaked, “Do it before…too late.”

I dropped down beside her, tears blinding me. I clutched at her jacket, sobbing. “Del, no! Del!”

Her eyes met mine, pleading.

Steal her power? I was supposed to steal
Del’s
power? My
deirfiúr
?

Nix fell to her knees beside me and grabbed my shirt, shaking me. I looked up.

“Do it!” Her gaze was hard. “Now! If we don’t defeat Victor, we won’t be able to get her back!”